When the flowers of earth have faded,
go outside at night and look up…
WANDERERS
Wide are the meadows of night
And daisies are shining there,
Tossing their lovely dews,
Lustrous and fair;
And through these sweet fields go,
Wanderers ‘mid the stars __
Venus, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune,
Saturn, Jupiter, Mars.
Tired in their silver, they move,
And circling, whisper and say,
Fair are the blossoming meads of delight
Through which we stray.
-Walter de la Mare
TILL TOMORROW
Good night! good night! — the golden day
Has veiled its sunset beam,
And twilight’s star its beauteous ray
Has mirrored in the stream; —
Low voices come from vale and height,
And murmur soft, good night! good night!
Good night! — the bee with folded wings
Sleeps sweet in honeyed flowers,
And far away the night-bird sings
In dreamy forest bowers,
And slowly fades the western light
In deepening shade, — good night! good night!
Good night! good night! — in whispers low
The ling’ring zephyr sighs.
And softly, in its dreamy flow.
The murm’ring brook replies;
And, where yon casement still is bright,
A softer voice has breathed good-night!
Good night! — as steals the cooling dew
Where the young violet lies.
E’en so may slumber steal anew
To weary human eyes.
And softly steep the aching sight
In dewy rest — good night! good night!
-Pamelia Sarah Yule, (1826 – 1897) Canada
Back in May, I wrote about how I had been given a nighttime airplane ride with my son-in-law as pilot. I have had the experience on commercial flights, too, and found it enthralling whenever we were flying low enough to see the patterns of lights down below. I wonder if I will have that chance again…
FLYING AT NIGHT
Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.
-Ted Kooser
SOFT SOUND
When in some coastal townlet, on a night
of low clouds and ennui, you open
the window – from afar
whispering sounds spill over.
Now listen closely and discern
the sound of seawaves breathing upon land,
protecting in the night
the soul that harkens unto them.
Daylong the murmur of the sea is muted,
but the unbidden day now passes
(tinkling as does an empty
tumbler on a glass shelf);
and once again amidst the sleepless hush
open your window, wider, wider,
and with the sea you are alone
in the enormous and calm world.
Not the sea’s sound… In the still night
I hear a different reverberation:
the soft sound of my native land,
her respiration and pulsation.
Therein blend all the shades of voices
so dear, so quickly interrupted
and melodies of Pushkin’s verse
and sighs of a remembered pine wood.
Repose and happiness are there,
a blessing upon exile;
yet the soft sound cannot be heard by day
drowned by the scurrying and rattling.
But in the compensating night,
in sleepless silence, one keeps listening
to one’s own country, to her murmuring,
her deathless deep.
-Vladimir Nabokov
Gladsome Lights 